Go4Expert / MBAGuys.net in Yourstory.in

A keen reader of Arthur Conan Doyle and a lover of the biryani, this Information Technology graduate hit upon a novel idea employing the enterprising spirit of the Young Entrepreneur, by building a website. This was not just any old run of the mill site either, there was something that made the site vastly different from all its other brethren on the information highway. YourStory caught up with Shabbir Bhimani, the man behind Go4Expert.com as he talks about how he started off his venture with just Rs 10,000 in 2005 and how it has grown at a rate of 120% since then.

He built a community site of programmers, for programmers and by programmers. Mind you, the site is not just for the hardcore programmer - the site itself proclaims "One reason the Go4Expert Forums is so special is that we welcome all newcomers, regardless of their level of knowledge or experience. Help new members learn about how to find information and resources, and how to get involved in the community." The site features high quality content on topics that are relevant to their target audience, namely all the programmers and developers out there.

Shabbir explains why he opted for the entrepreneurial route, he says "After my B.Tech degree I started with a job but then the job was becoming a 9-5 kind of thing and so I thought of quitting the job and doing what I liked more and that led to 'www.go4expert.com' and 'www.mbaguys.net'". A firm believer in the adage that "You don't Win Silver but lose Gold", he is aiming to reach a traffic of a million page views per month by 2010 on both the sites.

He explains how the business first took off saying "The site within the first 6 months of its inception became self sustaining and so it did not face any starting challenges financially but the challenge was to convince people to come to the forums, ask questions, initiate discussions and submit articles. The promotion of our forum was one of the major challenge in the starting years." However some great contributions in articles really got the ball rolling for him and with the help of some really good forum members the site has been flourishing. This was also a turning point of sorts for the site as more and more members joined up. Shabbir says "The main focus of our competitors is either forum interaction or article content but Go4Expert.com focuses equally on both of them. The model can be scaled up as we plan to add more volunteers to provide content to our site as well as spread the word."

Shabbir was pretty sure about his idea so much so that it has never occurred to him to quit entrepreneurship and take up a normal job again. For him it is more than just making a profit he is also interested in "helping the community". Inspired by the Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte and his Dad he aims to have the best technology repository on the internet. When it comes to expansion he says "Believe that it can grow to the extent it has grown and the extent we can think of."

To the Young Indian Entrepreneur he advises "Listen to the negative inputs as startups but believe in your ability as well."

Yourstory hopes and wishes that Shabbir makes many more such inroads to achieving his goals.

btw shabbir,
what made you think having a site would be a profitable thing? (beside the fact you wanted to)
As there are millions of sites, when you left your job, were you sure of this? or you went ahead with "dekha jayega attitude" (lets see whatever happens) or what...? as in with what kinda attitude you had...? tell us in more brief, really i am quite inspired.

So many sites are there, frankly speaking i have gone to many sites, registered, went once twice, then never went again, (even though some had good content)...what you think makes this site ticks, besides good posts..

please do the honors...elaborate a little about how go4expert came into being..?

what made you think having a site would be a profitable thing? (beside the fact you wanted to)
As there are millions of sites, when you left your job, were you sure of this? or you went ahead with "dekha jayega attitude" (lets see whatever happens) or what...? as in with what kinda attitude you had...? tell us in more brief, really i am quite inspired.

When I left the job I only had go4expert.com as website but I had experience with websites and that made me think I can be successful with other websites as well. Now I have one more coming up after MBAGuys.net

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayjune

So many sites are there, frankly speaking i have gone to many sites, registered, went once twice, then never went again, (even though some had good content)...what you think makes this site ticks, besides good posts..

Good people to talk with. I have seen many good sites where if you ask something very silly people tend to get furious. I hated that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayjune

please do the honors...elaborate a little about how go4expert came into being..?

I always like to share this. Go4Expert.com I launched because I wanted to share my articles and programs I did in my 4 years of Engineering to the world and I tried doing them into many sites like codeguru / codeproject but no one respected just the code and had so much of guidelines to follow that I got irritated and though would do them on my own site. As I was on many forums like sitepoint / codeguru though would use vBulletin because I really liked it but use it for Articles. After so much of threads being submitted as articles I moved them into forum and forum section came into existence and then to add to it all others that you see now.

To start with Go4Expert.com have forums which are mainly in B.Tech in IT but slowly it added on areas like Web Development ( Because I started learning it ) and Ethical Hacking, Web Hosting , Hardware because users requested to them like RE by you.

Go4Expert.com is never aimed at making money when started and not till date. The advertisement you see is mainly to handle the server cost ( We are upgrading servers too often now ) and mostly I donate to Open Source / Articles and other competitions.

You know, i think i got what makes this site unique.
Your aim was never to make money, and that context is what connects and attracts everyone and those who are really from the heart and have knowledge stick to this place. Be it to share gain or both, you see it that people are intrested.
btw whats the new site about??